Rookie of the year

A surprise hit, Lollapalooza's highlight and a U2 fave. What's next for Arcade Fire?

September 28, 2005|By Ari Bendersky, metromix special contributor.

Last September, most people would have asked: Who the hell is The Arcade Fire? Music bloggers would have answered: the great hope for rock and roll.

Someone listened to the bloggers.

Fueled by gushing Internet posts, "Funeral"--the band's debut, which came out last September on Merge Records--has sold 250,000 copies, a smash hit by indie-rock standards. It also didn't hurt that the band had a wholly unique sound: art-rock of sorts that, instead of beating us down with post-punk guitar pulsations, tempts us with building crescendos of violins, xylophones and poetic storytelling.

After topping many year-end album lists in 2004, the band has toured tirelessly --- not an easy task for a nine-piece ensemble. They were one of the biggest draws at Chicago's Lollapalooza this summer, and U2 recently asked the group to open three shows in November.

We caught up with lead singer Win Butler in Portland, Ore., where he was contemplating buying a new acoustic guitar.

Sounds like you're in a guitar shop?

I'm trying to decide if I want to buy an acoustic guitar or not. I left my old guitar in a trunk of a cab in New York a couple of days ago. I had it for quite a while. It was kind of sentimental. I wanted a new one, but I didn't want it to go that way.

You've said mp3s make it hard for artists to make a living. What do you think of mp3s now that they helped make your career?

I think it remains to be seen. It's the sort of thing that it is what it is. If I hear about any band, that's how I check it out. I don't buy a lot of records. Mp3s keep me from buying [bad] records. I think it's the way people are going to be exposed to music from now on.

What's life like on the road for you?

I really miss Montreal. Today we had a day off and got to hike near Portland and have really great food. I'm a creature of habit. We have restaurants we go to all the time [in Montreal] and have the same cup of coffee every day. I'm more comfortable having a routine. I just want to be a human.

Are you going to ride out "Funeral" for a while, or are you eager to record new songs?

We'll be back in the studio this fall. We'll be back in creative, creation-of-music mode. Me and Regine [Chassagne, Win's wife and co-founder of the band] can work on things together, on ideas for instrumentation and lyrics and stuff. The process of arranging songs, that's where the exciting stuff happens.

Do you know what the next album might sound like?

No, that wouldn't be exciting. You get ideas of wanting to hear certain drums together. But it's all in that state where you're dreaming about sound. Lyrically . . . music is so based on inspiration. You can show up and have written hundreds of songs, and most are lousy. It's not really in your hands whether it's going to be good or bad.

Does it make you at all nervous that you have to put out something as good as--or better than--"Funeral"?

I don't think about things in terms of being good or not when you're in the process of being a creative person. That's something you decide after the fact.

Do you miss the simpler days before the album exploded?

I feel we're on a path, and the specific speed at which we're running has been impacted. We have a lot of opportunities now that we didn't have before. We're more self-sufficient and we can set up our own studio. We don't have to compromise on how things can sound. We can do shows the way we want to do them. Most bands don't find themselves in that position. We wish we had more time to write and weren't touring so much, but there's a huge opportunity that's opened for us.